


Hear No Ills

by Ashida



Series: Call My Name [2]
Category: Gangsta. (Manga)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drabble, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 15:31:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4630506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashida/pseuds/Ashida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's cruel to be kind, Nicolas knows this better than anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hear No Ills

**Author's Note:**

> what are happy endings? whoops. 
> 
> I decided I needed a Nic POV after all. must matchy matchy.
> 
> You will need to read the first part of this series, ["Call, Upon Deaf Ears"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4504494) to understand this part.
> 
> Manga and anime spoilers ahead.

Hear No Ills.

 

Nic knew the moment he’d stepped foot through the door that something was wrong, because when something was wrong with Worick, he could _feel_ the quiet.  Feel the quiet that Worick sat in all day to soak the apartment in the stench of expired regrets.

 

He should have left well enough alone, Worick wasn’t dying or worse; crying, so he should have just _left_ it. Just as he’d learnt to leave asking why Worick looked like shit some mornings. He could well guess what those nightmares were about, but he’d rather not know what monsters plagued his friend’s sleep, because that monster was probably him.

 

But, he did the friend thing and asked, and got answers he didn’t fucking want.

 

He’d escaped instead, Nic wasn’t one to run, to flee from a fight or back down, but with this there was nothing else he could do. So he’d slammed the door behind him harder than he intended and found his way to a nearby roof top that no one could jump up to but him, and now here he was, sitting on the shingled roof with his katana clutched to his chest and the sun beating at his back as if saying he didn’t belong up there, either.

 

What did Worick want him to say? Did he want Nic to return his feelings? Then what? The happily ever after Nic read about in books did not happen here in Ergastulum. Letting this materialize would just invite more pain into Worick’s life instead. Worick needed to realize it was no use, just like everything else. Nic was going to die, and Worick already clung to him too much as it was.

 

Why did he have to go thinking of that tall bitch Paulklee and what she’d said at a time like this? _You shouldn’t upset your contract holder so much, Nicolas._

 

Upset Worick, he’d killed his family in front of his eyes, slaughtered the entire Arcangelo estate, and he’d do it again if given the chance, he’d taken his fucking eye out, disfigured Worick permanently as if bringing down a normal to his level, compensation they all called it.

Nic would do that again too, there was no point in regrets or morals, they were useless and wouldn’t get you anywhere in Ergastulum.

 

So why was he growing a conscience over _rejecting_ Worick of all things.

 

Knowing he’d be leaving Worick alone would bring the worst kind of pain, more so than what he lived with now every time he caught Worick looking at him with a rare unveiled expression, every time Worick smiled at him and pretended like it was something it wasn’t, every time he saw Worick fake it.

 

It would be too hard if they crossed any more lines.

 

Worick was smart, much smarter than he led people to believe, and Nic was fucking glad the blond was on his side, but in this Worick knew just as well as Nic did, so what was he playing at now after all these years.

 

It was something Nicolas had resigned himself too long ago, and his mind would never change. And hopefully with this time to think it over, Worick would have come to his senses too.

 

The sun was still lazily moving through the sky when Nic arrived at the apartment and left as fast as he’d come. Now, that sphere of light was dipped below the horizon, bathing Ergastulum in false beauty, hiding all the ugly things the city harbored in its twilight until the true darkness took over.

 

But Worick was still sitting in the window sill when Nic came home for the second time that day, except this time he was looked to Nic instantly instead of ignoring him.

 

This was not going to go well, because instead of forlorn and hesitant as he was before, Worick now was resolved, like he’d committed to the conversation to come. Ah, he should have just stayed out the night, even if it meant sleeping on that rooftop.

Vibrations travelled up his body with each step Worick took towards him, forceful and scorned at Nic’s earlier cowardice. So they were going to do this the hard way, he sighed to himself.

 

“Nicolas, tell me who’s name you think I said.” And Nic cursed his height at times like this as Worick towered over him, trapped him against the door with a palm planted on either side of his head.

 

Worick had been smoking too much in the time he’d spent alone, the apartment was shrouded with it, he could smell it on Worick’s breath more than usual, as well as the smell of sex and Nic’s cologne because Worick had borrowed it this morning. He smelt like day old hate and false hope and Nic really didn’t want to do this.

 

So all he provided was a shrug, it was easy to feign ignorance when you were deaf, as if he couldn’t hear the reverberations of Worick’s deep voice in his bones, couldn’t feel the sensation of his severity.

 

“Don’t give me that look, you and I both know what I said.” Worick pushed.

 

 _“I’m deaf, Worick, how am I meant to know.”_ he signed as proving his statement.

 

Bitterness flashed across Worick’s face, hurt and betrayed at Nic’s blatant avoidance of the truth. It was better this way, even if it meant hurting Worick now, in the short term this pain would be much less, and that was Nicolas’s only objective.

 

Worick wasn’t satisfied with that though, his persistence was A/0 level at least.

 

“You can’t use that as an excuse with me anymore.” And he pushed again, closer to the forbidden.

 

 _“What do you want from me, Worick.”_ Nic bristled against the wall, feeling his heckles rise as Worick’s fists bunched on the wall either side of him, he felt nails scrape against the wood as it echoed through the wall, sharpening the edge he was being forced closer to.

 

“Why won’t you just admit it?!” From Worick’s animation, the angry purse of his brows and the violent movements of his body, the way his shoulders hunched and the heave of his chest Nic knew he was yelling, and fuck this shit. Even if he couldn’t hear it, Nic still wasn’t going to take being yelled at, not over this when Worick himself knew why Nic remained mute about it for all this time.

 

So if Worick wanted to force it, then Nic would force it right back.

 

Pressure and retaliation made him snap, he’d been cornered long enough, bottling up his thoughts, so he pushed Worick, and because he was a fucking cursed Tag, of course it’d be too hard for a normal, hard enough to spend Worick falling under the weight of reality as he landed on his ass with a thump that Nic felt in his chest.

 

This was the truth of it, with a human sprawled helpless on the floor at his feet who simply couldn’t handle a Twilight and would never be able to.

 

His signing was sloppy, his hands shook too much because he was _trying_ to calm down, there was so much he wanted to say, and signing only went so far. In the end, he ended up yelling himself, hurling the words at Worick to try and get it across.

 

“’Cos its all pointless! ‘t won’ give you anythin’ bah more trubble! You’re deluded ‘f you think it could worrk. An’ in th end when I’ve diedd ‘n inssignifficant death, how amm I meantt to leav’ you behindd knowin’ you’ll be alone! You wan’ me to suffer thatt mmuch?”

 

Stress and tension gripped his hair as the whites of his knuckles showed, he could feel his heart racing, his skin prickling with sweat and he knew he needed to calm down.

 

Making out the grain of the wood floor helped dampen his thoughts, the scuff on his boots or the frayed knot in his laces that he never undid. Eventually, he looked to Worick who had narrow eyes and a pretense of a snarl on his lip, of course Worick would hate Nic’s reasoning, it was the only thing they ever fought about. And, not trusting himself to speak further because of the dry lump in his throat, he signed instead, pushing back against the counteractive ache in his conscience.

 

_“It would be better off if you said someone else’s name.”_

That last bit was a lot harder to sign than he thought would be, he’d take cutting off a head any day, but he wasn’t done yet. Worick was up now, walking towards him with his bared palms pleading for Nic not to finish.

 

_“Because I won’t hear it, Worick, and I never will.”_

The last space closed between them as Worick drew close with a deflated air and a pitiful smile on his face that said he’d known it would end up like this all along. That dumbass.

 

“You’re so cruel to me, Nicolas.” The blond sagged against him, his head buried in the crook of Nic’s neck as he himself sagged against the door, there they stood so close but so fucking far apart, huddled together at the entrance of their apartment like a preemptive last goodbye.

 

 _That’s right, Worick._ Nic mused to himself. _I’ll never hear it, even if I wanted to._

Truly, if Worick wanted him to suffer then this was the best way to do it, who was cruel one here really?

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Find me on tumblr! [here](http://captain-erwinmerica.tumblr.com)


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